Schuylkill County Human Resources Director Heidi L. Zula’s last day is Friday.

Hired on Dec. 9, 2020, at $79,000 a year, Zula starts her new job as human resources director at Harrisburg School District on June 6 at a salary of $125,000 a year.

Commissioners, with Commissioner Gary J. Hess absent, on Wednesday formally accepted her resignation; they did not say why she is leaving.

Zula is named in the federal sexual harassment lawsuit filed in March 2021 in U.S. District Court, Scranton, by four women who work in the courthouse, against Commissioner George F. Halcovage Jr.

Zula replaced interim human resources director Doreen M. Kutzler, who replaced Deborah A. Twigg.

Twigg was hired in January 2018, after her predecessor Martina A. Chwastiak retired.

Other defendants in the federal lawsuit are the county, First Assistant County Solicitor/Risk Manager Glenn T. Roth Jr., County Administrator Gary R. Bender, and Kutzler.

According to the suit, the women accuse Halcovage of harassing them since he was elected in 2012. The others are accused of failing to stop him and what the women say are retaliatory measures taken against them.

All five defendants have denied the accusations, and the U.S. Department of Justice has since joined the suit.

Although the women are identified in the suit only as Jane Doe 1, Jane Doe 2, Jane Doe 3, and Jane Doe 4, Tax Assessment Director Angela Toomey and her assistant, Denise McGinley-Gerchak, have since been identified after commissioners twice tried to fire them for allegedly using sensitive county owned software, LexisNexis, to research personal information on a about 300 people, including some county officials.

Because the software also reveals information about people associated with the search subjects, commissioners have said the personal information - including driver’s license, financial, addresses, and other data - of a total of 9,146 people may have been compromised.

On March 9, commissioners agreed to pay Experian $277,894 to notify those thousands of people and offer them each a year of free credit monitoring.

In September, commissioners attempted to fire Toomey and Gerchak, but Hess asked for an investigation. The women were suspended without pay pending the results.

The investigation was launched in November. The results have never been made public.

But based on that investigation, commissioners in March tried a second time to fire the women. That failed when Halcovage abstained, Hess voted no, and Commissioners Chairman Barron L. Hetherington voted in favor.

The women have since won unemployment benefits, and are working from home.

An investigation by the county Human Resources Department in June 2020 determined Halcovage violated the sexual harassment, conduct and disciplinary action, and the physical and verbal abuse policies.

In January, state Sen. David G. Argall launched a move to impeach Halcovage. That process is moving through the state Legislature.